History of Julius Caesar eBook

or fell pierced with the weapons of their assailants,
filling the air with their cries of agony and their
shrieks of terror. The horrors of the scene,
far from allaying, only excited still more the ferocity
of their bloodthirsty foes, and they pressed steadily
and fiercely on, hour after hour, in their dreadful
work of destruction. It was one of those scenes
of horror and woe such as those who have not witnessed
them can not conceive of, and those who have witnessed
can never forget.

[Sidenote: Pompey’s flight to the camp.]
[Sidenote: Pompey in his tent.] [Sidenote:
His consternation and despair.]

When Pompey perceived that all was lost, he fled from
the field in a state of the wildest excitement and
consternation. His troops were flying in all
directions, some toward the camp, vainly hoping to
find refuge there, and others in various other quarters,
wherever they saw the readiest hope of escape from
their merciless pursuers. Pompey himself fled
instinctively toward the camp. As he passed the
guards at the gate where he entered, he commanded
them, in his agitation and terror, to defend the gate
against the coming enemy, saying that he was going
to the other gates to attend to the defenses there.
He then hurried on, but a full sense of the helplessness
and hopelessness of his condition soon overwhelmed
him; he gave up all thought of defense, and, passing
with a sinking heart through the scene of consternation
and confusion which reigned every where within the
encampment, he sought his own tent, and, rushing into
it, sank down, amid the luxury and splendor which
had been arranged to do honor to his anticipated victory,
in a state of utter stupefaction and despair.

CHAPTER VIII.

Caesar pursued the discomfited and flying bodies of
Pompey’s army to the camp. They made a
brief stand upon the ramparts and at the gates in a
vain and fruitless struggle against the tide of victory
which they soon perceived must fully overwhelm them.
They gave way continually here and there along the
lines of intrenchment, and column after column of
Caesar’s followers broke through into the camp.
Pompey, hearing from his tent the increasing noise
and uproar, was at length aroused from his stupor,
and began to summon his faculties to the question what
he was to do. At length a party of fugitives,
hotly pursued by some of Caesar’s soldiers,
broke into his tent. “What!” said
Pompey, “into my tent too!” He had been
for more than thirty years a victorious general, accustomed
to all the deference and respect which boundless wealth,
extended and absolute power, and the highest military
rank could afford. In the encampments which he
had made, and in the cities which he had occupied
from time to time, he had been the supreme and unquestioned
master, and his tent, arranged and furnished, as it